The Sweet Life (17 page)

As she sat back and watched parts of Rome she’d never seen before rattle by, and life go on at its peculiarly Roman pace, she began to relax. Fellini didn’t seem real any longer. It felt like he was worlds away and she chided herself for losing her nerve.

If Luca
wasn’t
Fellini, she wouldn’t blame him if he thought she’d suddenly developed bipolar disorder where he was concerned. But if he
was
, and Janey shuddered at the thought, then a big fat cold shoulder was what he deserved, and more!

The bus turned onto a major thoroughfare jam-packed with bleating traffic. Janey stood and craned her neck out the half-open window above her head, desperate to find a street sign anywhere, and was rewarded when the bus screeched to a stop just beside a sign that read, rather grandly, ‘Corso Vittorio Emanuele II’.

Janey hastily located the right street map and worked out that she was near the bottom end of the Piazza Navona, an oval-shaped public ‘square’ that she’d visited with Luca, that magical afternoon when he ’d just seemed like a gorgeous guy with no agenda. In the past, the Piazza Navona had been a vast stadium where ancient Romans had raced chariots or something, but now it was filled with the roar of three iconic fountains and the chatter of hundreds of tourists guzzling gelati and iced drinks, taking photos of the same things.

She remembered that they’d run out of time to explore the fascinating street of antique dealers that ran off the northern end of the piazza, the Via dei Coronari. ‘That is for a whole other day,’ Luca had said laughingly, when Janey had expressed a desire to browse the antique shops for a souvenir to take home. ‘There are so many, and some so specialised, that you would need days to view the wares, and then more, to haggle with the dealers. Some have been there for centuries, in one guise or another.’

Janey jumped off outside the baroque façade of a public museum, and made for a nearby laneway that led right up to the southern end of the Piazza Navona.

Glad to be out of the crowded bus in the slightly less stuffy heat of the afternoon, she grabbed a granita from one of the cafés facing the piazza before wending her way through the posing tourists and souvenir vendors in the square. She made a beeline for the street of antiques.

Luca had been right. The street was one peeling façade after another, housing more antiques than she’d ever seen in her life. She browsed a store that sold old prints, some from as early as the sixteenth century and extremely rare and fragile. She purchased a tiny, framed etching of some Italian wildflowers from the eighteenth century for Gabs’s parents – to thank them for helping her get back on her feet – and strolled on, peering in the windows of a dealer who sold Roman and Etruscan era marble busts, and another who sold only gilded, religious icons. She stopped to wander through a long, cool showroom of modernist Italian advertising memorabilia and twentieth-century furniture, smiling at the woman fanning herself with an art catalogue at the cashier’s desk, before heading into the tiny shop front of a dealer who sold Italian paintings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

‘Buongiorno, signorina,’ smiled the handsome young art dealer. He was seated in a faded deck chair at the back of the store, in front of a retro 1950s electric fan that was on at full blast. A plate with the remains of a sandwich on it sat at his feet. He returned to reading an Italian paperback, allowing Janey to browse at her leisure.

She stole a sideways glance at him. He looked like he was in his late twenties, and had a mop of dark curling hair and the sensitive features and dark soulful eyes of a poet or intellectual. Libby had been so right about Italian guys! Janey smiled, flicking slowly through rack after rack of oil paintings displaying Italian street and beach scenes, the canals of Venice, ancient ruins, and portraits of long-dead people. Some were so realistic, it was as though her eyes were connecting with them through an open window of time.

After making her way around the shop, she was drawn back to a tiny oil painting of a towering arched ironwork gate, framing what looked like a square containing an Egyptian obelisk on one side and a grand, domed church on the other. She couldn’t work out where this place was, but the glimpse of the square beyond the open gate was archetypal Rome. For upon the cobbled square could be glimpsed a tiny taxi, some passing cars, and a distant scattering of people strolling in the sunshine.

‘Quanto?’ she asked, holding up the painting to the angelic looking young man in the deckchair, unsure whether he spoke English. ‘E dove?’ she added, feeling tongue-tied. She wanted to find out where this magical place could possibly be, but her Italian was so bad she’d probably just asked after the health of his cat!

The young man laid down his book and wandered over to take a look at the painting she held in her hand, with its peeling backing paper and tacky frame. Janey crossed her fingers that it wouldn’t cost more than she had with her, because she’d never wanted to own a painting more than she wanted this one.

He turned it over in his hands several times.

The young man finally replied in accented English, ‘Good choice, Miss. This is a pleasant view of Santa Maria di Montesanto and the obelisco at the Piazza del Popolo from beneath the arch of the Porta del Popolo. It is late twentieth-century,’ he explained, pointing out the taxi and cars. ‘So it is not so much. For you, I make 150 euro. It is well worth such price. It is very fine.’

Janey tried to hide her disappointment, working out that the little painting was over two hundred dollars – her entire budget for several days in Rome! She took the painting back from the man, regretfully tucking it back where she’d found it.

‘Mi dispiace.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t afford it. But it’s been lovely meeting you.’

She turned to step back out of the shop when the young man called, ‘Wait! I am mistaken.’

He rummaged through the pile of paintings Janey had just left and drew out the tiny oil again. ‘Fifty euro, okay? The frame, it is not so good. And see, the back, eh?’ He picked at the peeling paper with a fingernail. ‘It will need the changing.’

Janey smiled broadly at the young man’s gallantry, because clearly the painting was worth more than fifty euros, regardless of the frame’s condition. He hadn’t made a mistake, she knew, he was being kind, and Janey’s heart soared because she could afford fifty euros
and
she could have her little slice of Rome forever!

‘Deal,’ she said, then frowned. ‘If you’re sure?’

The young man nodded, and wrapped the little painting securely in brown paper and string before handing it to her. She emptied her wallet gladly, and they smiled at each other as the young man accepted her scrounged-together pile of notes and coins.

‘You will come again before you leave Rome?’ said the young man, more as a command than a question. ‘I am Gabriel Sansovino.’ He held out a hand to be shaken.

‘And I’m Janey Gordon,’ she beamed. ‘And I will most certainly return. You have a lovely shop.’

Gabriel Sansovino inclined his head and replied cheerfully, ‘Alla prossima volta! Ciao, till next time,’ before returning to his deckchair, sandwich, book and fan.

Brandon

Celia and Janey reached home at almost the same time.

‘Is everything all right?’ Celia asked when she spotted Janey in her bedroom placing the small, wrapped oil painting carefully into her suitcase. ‘Libby said you weren’t feeling well – apparently you bolted out of the Ambassador’s rooms as if you’d seen a ghost! She started telling me some garbled story about you, but the Ambassador interrupted us before I could make sense of what she was saying. Is there anything you need to tell me?’ Her expression was faintly disapproving.

Janey flushed, knowing her behaviour around Celia had been perceived as pretty flaky to date! Unsure whether Libby had updated Celia on her problems with Fellini, Janey said, ‘Sorry I ran out on you, but I
was
feeling really bad . . .’ Her voice trailed off. She wanted to tell Celia what had been happening, but equally she didn’t want Celia to think even less of her. Her story
was
rather strange. Where did she start? ‘Um . . .’

Celia didn’t give her a chance to clarify things, interrupting gently, ‘Well, as long as you’ve combatted whatever nasty bug that was – though I must say you seem to have recovered very quickly – we can reschedule the embassy tour. It isn’t going anywhere. But I’ve got another treat in store for you for tomorrow morning that we
will
have to act on quickly, because tickets to the Raffaello exhibition are hot property at the moment and all entries are timed. You’re going to
love
it!’

She beamed at Janey, who tried hard not to look blank. Obviously, Libby hadn’t managed to tell Celia about Fellini and Janey was loath to bring the subject up with Celia so excited for her about the exhibition.
Raffaello?
She thought wildly. Wasn’t that a type of, uh, chocolate?

Celia smiled, as though Janey had spoken aloud. ‘One of the leading artists of the Italian High Renaissance. Otherwise known to the English-speaking world as
Raphael
. You might have seen his tomb in the Pantheon. A couple of our staff members didn’t take up their tickets, so you and Freddy – lucky things! – get to go. Freddy will be home later tonight – she’s having dinner with her father.’ As Celia backed out of the room, she told Janey to dress casually for dinner at a local osteria just around the corner from the apartment.

After her aunt had gone, Janey’s expression grew thoughtful. Maybe there would be a chance to bring the subject of Fellini up with Celia later. As she changed for dinner, she made an amused face at her own reflection. Somehow, Freddy didn’t strike her as much of an art lover! It would be an interesting morning, no doubt.

Celia saw them both down to the car the next day. Janey had only just learnt that Luca was driving them to the exhibition at the Museo Galleria e Borghese – the sixteenth-century art gallery that had originally been the palace of the aristocratic Borghese family, located within the lovely gardens where she’d shared a picnic lunch with Luca on her very first day in Rome – and she had to concentrate hard on keeping her expression neutral, what with Celia watching her every move!

‘Buongiorno, signorina Gordon e signorina Del Gigli,’ murmured Luca formally as first Janey, then Freddy, climbed into the back seat.

‘Have fun, girls!’ Celia sighed. ‘I wish I was going with you, instead of to that boring seminar on Eastern Bloc policies.’

Janey waved out the window to her aunt, stung by the thought that she still hadn’t managed to update Celia on what had been going on. Her aunt had been so upbeat and chatty at dinner the night before that Janey hadn’t dared to bring up the subject for fear of causing any more tension.

Freddy sank down low in her seat and maintained a sullen silence. She started needling Luca in Italian as soon as he left the kerb, excluding Janey from the conversation. But Luca would have none of it.

‘Speak English,’ he said. ‘Janey, she cannot understand us. It is rude.’

‘Well, she’s welcome to listen,’ Freddy shrugged, ‘but it’s got nothing to do with her anyway! Sorry Janey, but this is between me and extreme-failure-to-commit over here. Why won’t you say
yes
, amico mio?’